Global bunker prices rose sharply in September, driven by Middle East geopolitical uncertainty, tight crude and distillate supply, and regional bunker availability constraints. By the end of the month, the MABUX 380 HSFO Index had increased by USD 79.31, rising from USD 622.00/MT at the end of August to USD 701.31/MT. The VLSFO Index gained […]
Global schedule reliability fell sharply again in August 2026, dropping below 50% as severe port congestion in Asia continued to disrupt liner shipping performance. According to Sea-Intelligence’s latest Global Liner Performance (GLP) report, schedule reliability declined by 5.9 percentage points month on month to 49.9% in August. This marked the second consecutive monthly decline and […]
Indonesian carriers play a vital role in connecting the country’s vast archipelago, with Samudera and Meratus leading the market by deployed capacity, according to Alphaliner. Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelagic state, with about 17,000 islands stretched across roughly 5,000 km between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. With more than 280 million people, the world’s […]
The unusually compressed 2026 holiday calendar is creating significant disruption in Golden Week shipping capacity, particularly on the Asia–North Europe trade, as congestion and vessel scheduling issues combine to distort normal capacity patterns. According to Sea-Intelligence’s latest Sunday Spotlight analysis, the Mid-Autumn Festival from 25–27 September falls immediately ahead of China’s Golden Week holiday on […]
Chartered tonnage now represents a smaller share of the fleets of many leading container carriers as shipping lines continue expanding owned capacity, according to Alphaliner. Chartered container tonnage is losing the favour of the Top-10 container shipping lines. Since 2021-2022, the share of chartered capacity in most of the biggest carriers’ fleets has been falling, […]
Red Sea routing normalisation reached 27% in September as container shipping lines continued a gradual return to the Suez Canal, according to the latest Sunday Spotlight commentary from Sea-Intelligence. In Issue 782, Sea-Intelligence used its Trade Capacity Outlook data to track the Asia-Europe container vessels that have recently sailed through the Red Sea or are […]
Intra-Asia shipping capacity increased modestly in mid-August, with Maersk overtaking COSCO to become the trade’s largest carrier, according to Alphaliner. Alphaliner’s mid-August review of the intra-Asia (excluding domestic) trade shows a modest 6.2% year-on-year increase in deployed capacity, to just below 2.6 M teu. This compares with over 5% growth in the global 34+ Mteu […]
Carrier alliances are becoming increasingly specialised on the Asia-Europe trade, with relatively little overlap in the direct port combinations offered by competing alliances. Sea-Intelligence highlights this pattern in Issue 781 of its Sunday Spotlight, showing how alliances are structuring their services around differentiated direct connections rather than competing across largely identical networks. On Asia-Europe, 65% […]
Container ship capacity could move beyond today’s 24,000 teu megamax vessels as rising fuel and carbon costs strengthen the case for even larger ships, according to Alphaliner. For about a decade it looked as if the ‘megamax-24’ with its intake of around 24,000 teu would remain the largest container ship class ‘forever’. Alphaliner however believes […]